Windows 7 SP1 beta rumored by end of 2009, RTM summer 2010

Windows 7 may be out, but Microsoft is of course still hard at work improving …

We already know Microsoft is hard at work on Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1, but beyond that there are few details to share. The Russian site wzor.net, which leaked many builds of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 during their development phase, last week released some timeframe information about SP1. According to the rumor, Windows 7 SP1 will have two betas and two release candidates. Testers may get the first beta as early as December 2009, the public will get it in January 2010, the RTM is scheduled for summer 2010, and finally the RTW will arrive in autumn 2010. At least, that's what the schedule supposedly looks like right now. We're getting this summary after using Bing and Google to translate the Russian text, so something could have been lost in translation, but, more importantly, such an internal schedule is bound to change.

With the end of September 2009 Microsoft resumed intensive work on the first Service Pack for Windows 7, the Assembly is collected, the work is, we are witnessing processes taking place in the company, and as soon as much work on SP1 will propagate to "interesting" stages, so we'll try to give you know about this.

According to our information, the first beta 1 version of SP1 for Windows 7 may appear at the end of December this year, most during holidays and new year already after SP1 Beta 1 would actually TAP ????????.

Public stage test SP1 for Windows 7 will begin in the first 10 days of January 2010.

The whole is scheduled to release two beta version of SP1 for Windows 7 and two release candidates.

Exit the final release of SP1 for Windows 7 is planned for autumn 2010, PC manufacturers will have updated distributions Windows 7 with SP1 as always much earlier that in the summer of 2010.

Since the end of September 2009, Microsoft has resumed intensive work on the first service pack for Windows 7, the assembly gathered, the work in full swing, we observe the processes taking place in a company and as soon as work on SP1 significantly advance to the "interesting stages, so we just try to give you know about this.

Now we will not "spook" the leadership and development team, leak test assemblies SP1 Beta 1.

To our knowledge the first Beta 1 version of SP1 for Windows 7 may appear at the end of December this year, just before the Christmas holidays, and after the new year, SP1 Beta 1 will be given to the TAP Testori.

The public phase of testing SP1 for Windows 7 will begin in early January 2010.

Total scheduled to launch two beta versions of SP1 for Windows 7 and two release candidates.

Output the final version of SP1 for Windows 7 is scheduled for the autumn of 2010, PC makers will get the updated distributions of Windows 7 with SP1 as always much earlier ie in the summer of 2010.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 had a five-month beta program: there was a Beta, a Release Candidate Preview, a Release Candidate, a Release Candidate Refresh, and a Release Candidate Refresh 2. The last one ended up becoming the RTM build. SP1 addressed many of the issues bugging users since the release of Vista. It rolled together more than 300 hot fixes covering everything from data protection to video performance. Windows Vista hit RTM in November 2006 and SP1 hit RTM in March 2008.

Windows 7 hit RTM in July 2009 and according to the information from wzor.net, SP1 will hit RTM somewhere between June 2010 and August 2010, which is a much faster turnaround than Vista. Still, this is just a rumor, and even if it's on the money right now, delays are bound to occur.

SP1 will address many of the issues bugging users since the release of Vista. It rolled together more than 300 hot fixes covering everything from data protection to video performance. Windows Vista hit RTM in November 2006 and SP1 hit RTM in March 2008.

What's with the tense switch? Nothing up there should be in future tense.

Well, the first thing that struck me when reading the article was... Google translate > Bing. I know it's already been mentioned.

I also just got Win 7 Pro x64 up and working on VMware 3.0 on my new MacBook Pro. The installation and upgrade from XP x86 was brutal, although Win 7 seems to be running fine. I've heard it suggested that the x64 version should run much better in virtualization. I haven't tried the 32-bit version, but I can say the Win 7 x64 seems to run about as well as XP in virtualization (well enough that most people don't know it's running in virtualization until I switch spaces... it runs full screen in its own space).

If anyone tries to upgrade to Win 7 x64 from Win XP x86 in Fusion, make a new image using the Win 7 upgrade disk/disk image, and then choose to customize the installation. Then add a second hard drive to the image using an already setup Win XP image before proceeding with the actual installation.

Originally posted by tuxplorer:SP1 is MS's only chance to fix the botched Windows Explorer. After that it gets passed on to the Sustained Engineering team and then the next version will never fix it too and so on.

Botched how? The only major feature I wish they'd included was per-folder entries on the taskbar, which has a simple workaround with quick launch.

Originally posted by tuxplorer:SP1 is MS's only chance to fix the botched Windows Explorer. After that it gets passed on to the Sustained Engineering team and then the next version will never fix it too and so on.

Botched how? The only major feature I wish they'd included was per-folder entries on the taskbar, which has a simple workaround with quick launch.

Ya I don't understand either. Whats wrong with Explorer? I'm not on my Win 7 machine right now so I can't look over it again, but I don't seem to remember anything wrong with it.

Originally posted by tuxplorer:SP1 is MS's only chance to fix the botched Windows Explorer. After that it gets passed on to the Sustained Engineering team and then the next version will never fix it too and so on.

Botched how? The only major feature I wish they'd included was per-folder entries on the taskbar, which has a simple workaround with quick launch.

Ya I don't understand either. Whats wrong with Explorer? I'm not on my Win 7 machine right now so I can't look over it again, but I don't seem to remember anything wrong with it.

The only things I can imagine he's on about are the subtle pixel errors PeterB was on about, or (from his user name) that it's not as ugly as the linux file managers.

I'm satisfied that pending operation no longer lock the whole window. Previously, clicking on a folder and waiting for the drive to spin up or the network to respond resulted in a frozen window. Now it appears to be multi-threaded and you can go to other folders while you wait for the previous one to respond.

The lack of consistency with Internet Explorer 8 button positions is odd, but hardly a "botch".

Re Explorer: I'm assuming the complaint is about Explorer's tendency to not remember view settings that the user sets for a folder, that was introduced in Vista (ie. set it to Thumbnail, come back some time later & it's List, or Details view will not have the columns you added).

Basically, Explorer looks at the files in a folder & applies a view template according to the file types it sees, overriding whatever you'd set manually.

Originally posted by tuxplorer:SP1 is MS's only chance to fix the botched Windows Explorer. After that it gets passed on to the Sustained Engineering team and then the next version will never fix it too and so on.